Derek Landy's Blog, page 12
July 21, 2013
Can't Think Of A Title For This Post
It's getting harder and harder to find the time to watch movies these days, so you'd think my criteria for the films I DO get to watch would improve, right? Like, I should probably make the decision to ONLY watch movies that have a chance of being actually good, and to stay away from films I've heard are terrible. Right? Right.
But where's the fun in that?
Besides, adopting such a sensible attitude to movie-watching would have robbed me of the delight of realising that two films I expected to be absolute rubbish turned out to be surprisingly good fun. Let's take the first one— a sequel to one of the worst films I've seen in the last few years.
GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra was an awful film. I mean, it was just dreadful. It was so bad that I felt compelled to talk about it on this very Blog, way back in 2009. Here is what I said about it:
"I now hate this movie, for it is awful. It is worse than X-Men 3. It is even worse than Transformers 2. I have not hated a film so much since I saw Van Helsing. Van Helsing was directed by the same man. There are lessons in life I should learn, and yet learn them I do not."
Ah, good times. This was back when I was writing Dark Days. What a fantastic book that was.
Sorry, where was I? Oh yes.
The first GI Joe was horrible. It had a stupid story and stupid action and stupid characters and everything was stupid. It had the worst CGI I'd seen in a long time and they'd taken a monumentally dumb approach to the whole thing. They gave the Joes super robot suits, for god's sake.
So naturally, knowing how much I hated the first one, I went ahead and watched the sequel. And maybe it's because I expected it to be every bit as bad— but it was actually pretty cool.
The story was still dumb. COBRA'S ultimate plan was just daft. But there were so many cool bits in it. The ninjas on the mountain. Adrianne Palicki jogging. Cobra Commander's AWESOME outfit. Adrianne Palicki in the red dress. Bruce Willis and his house of guns. Adrianne Palicki doing stuff.
And the two best scenes were between the Rock and Channing Tatum. The video game and the sharpshooting. Funny writing, funny performances- if every scene was as good as these two, it would have been an amazing movie. As it was, it was fun, action-packed, quite stupid, but there is NOTHING about it you'd hate after watching it.
Oh, but there is ONE moment I should mention. To show how high tech the Joes are, they're given all these cool gadgets at the start. One of these gadgets is a pair of gloves that MELTS THROUGH a chainlink fence. Melts THROUGH it! How awesome is that?? No more waiting around for the extra few seconds while they cut through the fence with stupid, old-fashioned fence cutters! No way! Now they save VITAL SECONDS by using these gloves! And the best thing? THEY GLOW BRIGHT ORANGE! So instead of dumb soldiers cutting through a fence with stupid fence cutters in the dark, being all sneaky and stuff, now the Joes can cut through the fence and alert any enemy within a five mile radius to their presence at the same time! Yippee!
(But apart from this moment of dumbness, it's not a bad movie. I swear.)
And the other film I thought would be awful was Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.
I heard this was diabolical. It's not. There are parts of this that are SO COOL. The witches are the best witches ever in the world EVER. They're evil and hideous but no two are alike. The make-up is brilliant. Famke Janssen is the head witch, and it takes guts to turn one of the most beautiful women in the world into a hideous monster, but they do it, and she's utterly brilliant.
It's a lovely idea at its core— what would Hansel and Gretel be like when they grew up?— and while it's set in a vague time, hundreds of years ago, the language and the music are modern day, which adds to the anarchic quality of it all. That said, the American accents sported by Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton are a tad distracting, especially seeing as how everyone else has a thick European accent. But come on... Renner's cool and Gemma Arterton is Gemma Arterton. Mmmm Gemma Arterton...
Word of warning, though. This looks like a family film, like a slightly dark fairytale, but it's not. It revels in bad language and gore. There are exploding heads a-plenty. So naturally I loved it.
I don't know if I'd ever watch either of these movies for a second time, but they were pretty damn good the first time out. Which was a really nice surprise.
But where's the fun in that?
Besides, adopting such a sensible attitude to movie-watching would have robbed me of the delight of realising that two films I expected to be absolute rubbish turned out to be surprisingly good fun. Let's take the first one— a sequel to one of the worst films I've seen in the last few years.
GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra was an awful film. I mean, it was just dreadful. It was so bad that I felt compelled to talk about it on this very Blog, way back in 2009. Here is what I said about it:
"I now hate this movie, for it is awful. It is worse than X-Men 3. It is even worse than Transformers 2. I have not hated a film so much since I saw Van Helsing. Van Helsing was directed by the same man. There are lessons in life I should learn, and yet learn them I do not."
Ah, good times. This was back when I was writing Dark Days. What a fantastic book that was.
Sorry, where was I? Oh yes.
The first GI Joe was horrible. It had a stupid story and stupid action and stupid characters and everything was stupid. It had the worst CGI I'd seen in a long time and they'd taken a monumentally dumb approach to the whole thing. They gave the Joes super robot suits, for god's sake.
So naturally, knowing how much I hated the first one, I went ahead and watched the sequel. And maybe it's because I expected it to be every bit as bad— but it was actually pretty cool.
The story was still dumb. COBRA'S ultimate plan was just daft. But there were so many cool bits in it. The ninjas on the mountain. Adrianne Palicki jogging. Cobra Commander's AWESOME outfit. Adrianne Palicki in the red dress. Bruce Willis and his house of guns. Adrianne Palicki doing stuff.
And the two best scenes were between the Rock and Channing Tatum. The video game and the sharpshooting. Funny writing, funny performances- if every scene was as good as these two, it would have been an amazing movie. As it was, it was fun, action-packed, quite stupid, but there is NOTHING about it you'd hate after watching it.
Oh, but there is ONE moment I should mention. To show how high tech the Joes are, they're given all these cool gadgets at the start. One of these gadgets is a pair of gloves that MELTS THROUGH a chainlink fence. Melts THROUGH it! How awesome is that?? No more waiting around for the extra few seconds while they cut through the fence with stupid, old-fashioned fence cutters! No way! Now they save VITAL SECONDS by using these gloves! And the best thing? THEY GLOW BRIGHT ORANGE! So instead of dumb soldiers cutting through a fence with stupid fence cutters in the dark, being all sneaky and stuff, now the Joes can cut through the fence and alert any enemy within a five mile radius to their presence at the same time! Yippee!
(But apart from this moment of dumbness, it's not a bad movie. I swear.)
And the other film I thought would be awful was Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.
I heard this was diabolical. It's not. There are parts of this that are SO COOL. The witches are the best witches ever in the world EVER. They're evil and hideous but no two are alike. The make-up is brilliant. Famke Janssen is the head witch, and it takes guts to turn one of the most beautiful women in the world into a hideous monster, but they do it, and she's utterly brilliant.
It's a lovely idea at its core— what would Hansel and Gretel be like when they grew up?— and while it's set in a vague time, hundreds of years ago, the language and the music are modern day, which adds to the anarchic quality of it all. That said, the American accents sported by Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton are a tad distracting, especially seeing as how everyone else has a thick European accent. But come on... Renner's cool and Gemma Arterton is Gemma Arterton. Mmmm Gemma Arterton...
Word of warning, though. This looks like a family film, like a slightly dark fairytale, but it's not. It revels in bad language and gore. There are exploding heads a-plenty. So naturally I loved it.
I don't know if I'd ever watch either of these movies for a second time, but they were pretty damn good the first time out. Which was a really nice surprise.
July 14, 2013
Colleen
A few days ago, I was asked by a reader to talk about mental health issues on this blog, a topic about which I know nothing about. I was hesitant at first— in fact I still am— because there is nothing worse than being given the wrong advice. And me? I have no advice to give.
But these last few signings have been interesting. I've met quite a few people who have made me stop and think about my role and my responsibilities an an author. This isn't something I wanted. I didn't write these books to be famous or to be listened to— I wrote them to write them. That's it. By my reckoning, I shouldn't have any responsibilities towards any of you. I just write books that you happen to read. Why should I care about you beyond you reading my work and giving me your money?
But of course, I do care. Quite by accident, I assure you. This was not planned. I've met a few of you, I know a few of you, and I've heard from even more of you. I read your comments and your tweets and your letters. Some of you have stories to tell, and I end up listening.
These past few months, since The Maleficent Seven has been released, I've met a lot of new people. I met a girl who thanked me for mentioning the fact that Tanith once had a thing with Aurora Jane— and she thanked me again for not making a big deal out of it. I met a girl with selective mutism who, by the end of our encounter, was chatting away and grilling me about plot details. Then I met a girl who thanked me for Clarabelle.
I smiled and told her how much I loved writing that character. The girl nodded, smiled, told me again how much she loved Clarabelle. Then she told me she had mental health issues, and sometimes she found it hard to separate what was real from what wasn't, and she loved Clarabelle because she saw in her a person who was different from others but who was loved, and accepted, and allowed to thrive.
And I looked at this girl and I didn't know what to say. I came up with Clarabelle because I needed a certain kind of warmth and a certain kind of quirkiness. Never in a million years did I think that someone out there would relate to her.
These three girls have all sorts of pressures on them that I can't understand, and all three of them have a handle on it. The Clarabelle fan was getting the help and support she needs. The girl who couldn't speak was speaking, and she even fist-bumped me on her way out. And the Tanith fan was as strong and confident as anyone I'd ever seen. And as each one of these girls walked off, I realised that they were my readers. These girls, and boys and girls and men and women like them all around the world, are my readers, and if I can do anything to help them in any way, even if it's just to raise a smile when they're feeling low, then I have managed to do something that I never thought I'd be capable of. I'd be able to help them.
We all have problems. We all have issues. We all have pressures. If you don't seek the right kind of help, if you don't know where to look or you don't have the friends and family to support you, things can go wrong. But there is help out there. There are people, unlike me, who know what they're talking about. Every country will have its own helplines and websites, sites like SpunOut.ie here in Ireland. Search for them. Find them. And for god's sake use them.
I am now going back to being selfish and egotistical, and absolutely sure that Holly Smale fancies me.
But these last few signings have been interesting. I've met quite a few people who have made me stop and think about my role and my responsibilities an an author. This isn't something I wanted. I didn't write these books to be famous or to be listened to— I wrote them to write them. That's it. By my reckoning, I shouldn't have any responsibilities towards any of you. I just write books that you happen to read. Why should I care about you beyond you reading my work and giving me your money?
But of course, I do care. Quite by accident, I assure you. This was not planned. I've met a few of you, I know a few of you, and I've heard from even more of you. I read your comments and your tweets and your letters. Some of you have stories to tell, and I end up listening.
These past few months, since The Maleficent Seven has been released, I've met a lot of new people. I met a girl who thanked me for mentioning the fact that Tanith once had a thing with Aurora Jane— and she thanked me again for not making a big deal out of it. I met a girl with selective mutism who, by the end of our encounter, was chatting away and grilling me about plot details. Then I met a girl who thanked me for Clarabelle.
I smiled and told her how much I loved writing that character. The girl nodded, smiled, told me again how much she loved Clarabelle. Then she told me she had mental health issues, and sometimes she found it hard to separate what was real from what wasn't, and she loved Clarabelle because she saw in her a person who was different from others but who was loved, and accepted, and allowed to thrive.
And I looked at this girl and I didn't know what to say. I came up with Clarabelle because I needed a certain kind of warmth and a certain kind of quirkiness. Never in a million years did I think that someone out there would relate to her.
These three girls have all sorts of pressures on them that I can't understand, and all three of them have a handle on it. The Clarabelle fan was getting the help and support she needs. The girl who couldn't speak was speaking, and she even fist-bumped me on her way out. And the Tanith fan was as strong and confident as anyone I'd ever seen. And as each one of these girls walked off, I realised that they were my readers. These girls, and boys and girls and men and women like them all around the world, are my readers, and if I can do anything to help them in any way, even if it's just to raise a smile when they're feeling low, then I have managed to do something that I never thought I'd be capable of. I'd be able to help them.
We all have problems. We all have issues. We all have pressures. If you don't seek the right kind of help, if you don't know where to look or you don't have the friends and family to support you, things can go wrong. But there is help out there. There are people, unlike me, who know what they're talking about. Every country will have its own helplines and websites, sites like SpunOut.ie here in Ireland. Search for them. Find them. And for god's sake use them.
I am now going back to being selfish and egotistical, and absolutely sure that Holly Smale fancies me.
July 8, 2013
Geek Girl
Those of you who dip your toes into the ocean that is Twitter may have noticed me mentioning a book for silly, soppy girls, called Geek Girl, by Holly Smale. In the interests of full disclosure, I have to say right now that I met Holly at the Harper Collins Summer Party last week and, well... she's kind of besotted with me. It's a thing, it happens, it's perfectly natural, so let's all move past it without making Holly feel at all self-conscious.
Thank you.
I exchanged a few tweets with her a few weeks ago, then visited her twitter page. I figured if she was half as funny in her book as she is on twitter, it'd be a book worth reading. So I bought it, and I've just finished it.
My Review of Geek Girl
Geek Girl is a book about a girl who is a geek. There are no ninjas in it. Virtually no one dies. There are two haircuts (one planned, one not). There are bizarre characters. There is one tremendously awful bully that makes you want to punch the page. There are clothes and shoes.
And DESPITE all the lack of bloodshed... this book is brilliant.
Harriet is 15 years old. She's a geek. She likes facts and figures and doing her homework. She's not exactly popular in school. She's just... weird. Her mind works in unusual ways. When she's plucked from her life and told she's going to be a model she thinks everything is going to get better— she's going to change and suddenly be cool and have friends...
There are lines in this book that will make you laugh out loud. There are jokes. One liners. Gags. Set ups and payoffs. It may deal with popularity (or lack of same), and it may deal with bullying, and insecurity, and it may play with the myth of metamorphosis... but even when Harriet is at her most vulnerable, she is never less than hilarious.
If it helps, you can think of Harriet as the younger sister to Clarabelle, in the Skulduggery books. She is, literally, THAT weird. And THAT loveable.
I would rate this book eight fish out of eight.
But please, let's not mention how much Holly fancies me. It's just... it's embarrassing.
Thank you.
I exchanged a few tweets with her a few weeks ago, then visited her twitter page. I figured if she was half as funny in her book as she is on twitter, it'd be a book worth reading. So I bought it, and I've just finished it.
My Review of Geek Girl
Geek Girl is a book about a girl who is a geek. There are no ninjas in it. Virtually no one dies. There are two haircuts (one planned, one not). There are bizarre characters. There is one tremendously awful bully that makes you want to punch the page. There are clothes and shoes.
And DESPITE all the lack of bloodshed... this book is brilliant.
Harriet is 15 years old. She's a geek. She likes facts and figures and doing her homework. She's not exactly popular in school. She's just... weird. Her mind works in unusual ways. When she's plucked from her life and told she's going to be a model she thinks everything is going to get better— she's going to change and suddenly be cool and have friends...
There are lines in this book that will make you laugh out loud. There are jokes. One liners. Gags. Set ups and payoffs. It may deal with popularity (or lack of same), and it may deal with bullying, and insecurity, and it may play with the myth of metamorphosis... but even when Harriet is at her most vulnerable, she is never less than hilarious.
If it helps, you can think of Harriet as the younger sister to Clarabelle, in the Skulduggery books. She is, literally, THAT weird. And THAT loveable.
I would rate this book eight fish out of eight.
But please, let's not mention how much Holly fancies me. It's just... it's embarrassing.
July 2, 2013
It's Fun Being a Writer
I get to create stories for a living. I get to daydream for a job. I also, fair enough, have to work extremely hard and cocoon myself in solitude until the book is finished, but that's beside the point. The point is, I get to be a writer, which is something so few people who ALSO want to be writers get to do.
I've just made the very last changes to LSODM I can possibly make. We're in the final type-setting stage now— that is when they take the words you've written in the manuscript and arrange them onto a book page, ready to be printed. And I now know how many pages there are going to be...
KOTW was 607 pages in the hardback version. LSODM, which is a little under 30,000 words longer, will be... ready for this?... it will be...
604 pages.
Woohooo!!!!!
Now, wait a moment, before you scratch your heads and ask how does that work, it is quite simple. If they had continued to use the same font size as they used from the very start, my publishers would be releasing a book of, according to my vague and approximate mathematical skills, 900 pages. Which is a tad BIG.
So instead they've just reduced the size of the font, to squeeze more words in. Yay! You'll be able to lift up the book when you read it! Result!
Anyway, where was I?
Yes, now that I have approved the type-setting pages, and sent in the dedication and the author biography, I can now get back to the business of being a writer. Which is, y'know, to write... and stuff...
Coming up very soon, I have a non-Skulduggery short story to write, I have to start planning out Book Nine in greater detail (and actually get started on it), and I need to write a load of Skulduggery mini-adventures for the short story collection, in 2014.
But right NOW, my main focus is on another non-Skulduggery short story, for a collection that'll be coming out in the winter of next year. I've been thinking about this for a while now, trying to figure out what to write. It can be any genre, any style... My options are unlimited. But, see, that's where the problem lies.
Limitations are useful. If I'd been told that my story had to be, say, dystopian future sci fi, then I'd have nodded and gone off and written a great dystopian future sic fi story. But because it CAN be a dystopian future sci fi OR a modern day fantasy OR a comedy about a kettle shop OR a first person narrative about a boy who has lost his dog... I now have too many options. How can I settle on one idea if I might find a better one in a different genre?
Before I wrote Skulduggery Pleasant, I embarked upon a hundred half-finished and abandoned stories, books and scripts. Any of you who write will know what I'm talking about. We flit from story to story because we get bored or we get a better idea or this one we're writing now is just not working, or it's too hard, or it's not coming out like we wanted... We flit because our imaginations are running too wild. Our creativity will not settle down.
But of course it won't. It's imagination. It's creativity. Their whole purpose is to go crazy. Their whole purpose is to run wild. But we, as writers, need to get on our horses and gallop after them, lasso them, pull them back, slow them down and herd them into a pen (and this is where the metaphor gets extravagant, as this is both a livestock pen AND an author's pen). We don't want them tame, of course we don't. We want them rearing and kicking— but we want them to do it in that enclosure, within those boundaries and those limitations. That's the only way we'll be able to use that creativity to write a story.
So, that's what I'm doing now. I'm thinking about limitations, and boundaries, and genres. What do I WANT to write about? What style do I WANT to write in? What genre? Once I know all that I'll be able to think of a story and a character and sit down and write the damn thing.
I've just made the very last changes to LSODM I can possibly make. We're in the final type-setting stage now— that is when they take the words you've written in the manuscript and arrange them onto a book page, ready to be printed. And I now know how many pages there are going to be...
KOTW was 607 pages in the hardback version. LSODM, which is a little under 30,000 words longer, will be... ready for this?... it will be...
604 pages.
Woohooo!!!!!
Now, wait a moment, before you scratch your heads and ask how does that work, it is quite simple. If they had continued to use the same font size as they used from the very start, my publishers would be releasing a book of, according to my vague and approximate mathematical skills, 900 pages. Which is a tad BIG.
So instead they've just reduced the size of the font, to squeeze more words in. Yay! You'll be able to lift up the book when you read it! Result!
Anyway, where was I?
Yes, now that I have approved the type-setting pages, and sent in the dedication and the author biography, I can now get back to the business of being a writer. Which is, y'know, to write... and stuff...
Coming up very soon, I have a non-Skulduggery short story to write, I have to start planning out Book Nine in greater detail (and actually get started on it), and I need to write a load of Skulduggery mini-adventures for the short story collection, in 2014.
But right NOW, my main focus is on another non-Skulduggery short story, for a collection that'll be coming out in the winter of next year. I've been thinking about this for a while now, trying to figure out what to write. It can be any genre, any style... My options are unlimited. But, see, that's where the problem lies.
Limitations are useful. If I'd been told that my story had to be, say, dystopian future sci fi, then I'd have nodded and gone off and written a great dystopian future sic fi story. But because it CAN be a dystopian future sci fi OR a modern day fantasy OR a comedy about a kettle shop OR a first person narrative about a boy who has lost his dog... I now have too many options. How can I settle on one idea if I might find a better one in a different genre?
Before I wrote Skulduggery Pleasant, I embarked upon a hundred half-finished and abandoned stories, books and scripts. Any of you who write will know what I'm talking about. We flit from story to story because we get bored or we get a better idea or this one we're writing now is just not working, or it's too hard, or it's not coming out like we wanted... We flit because our imaginations are running too wild. Our creativity will not settle down.
But of course it won't. It's imagination. It's creativity. Their whole purpose is to go crazy. Their whole purpose is to run wild. But we, as writers, need to get on our horses and gallop after them, lasso them, pull them back, slow them down and herd them into a pen (and this is where the metaphor gets extravagant, as this is both a livestock pen AND an author's pen). We don't want them tame, of course we don't. We want them rearing and kicking— but we want them to do it in that enclosure, within those boundaries and those limitations. That's the only way we'll be able to use that creativity to write a story.
So, that's what I'm doing now. I'm thinking about limitations, and boundaries, and genres. What do I WANT to write about? What style do I WANT to write in? What genre? Once I know all that I'll be able to think of a story and a character and sit down and write the damn thing.
June 21, 2013
Rundown
This day last week I was in Leeds. First, I visited the school in Huddersfield that had won the Skulduggery photo competition, and got chatting to a room full of highly amusing students. Then it was on to Leeds itself, to Waterstones, for an event, a question and answer session, and a signing that went on for, ahem, quite a while.
The following day we were in York, again at Waterstones, for a signing that AGAIN went on for longer than we had expected. Three hours in Leeds, four hours in York. Of course, some people (who shall remain nameless) chose to go to BOTH, which may explain the length...
I came back with the usual assortment of letters and notes (which I still have to go through), presents (including a garden gnome), and Skittles. Because I like Skittles.
It was so much fun, the Watersones staff were all ultra-cool, and everyone kept me grinning from beginning to end. So thank you everyone who made it out, and thank you to everyone who braved the long queues...!
So I got home on Saturday night, and I've been home for the last week, and I haven't done ANY work at all. Well, almost. Okay, so I did some businessy type stuff, but I didn't WRITE anything. Kind of. Okay, so I'm already planning the final Skulduggery book, and possibly a few other things, but that is ALL. I am taking a BREAK. Mostly.
So now that I'm taking a break, I can give a quick rundown on stuff I've been enjoying over the past few months...
Man of Steel: This was... good. It was a good film. Wasn't brilliant. I went to it with my mum, sisters and brother. My mum and sisters all thought it was amazing. My brother and I were more subdued— and seeing as how my brother and I are the only ones whose opinion I trust, I trusted us.
Dexter, season seven: Ah, the penultimate season of the serial killer hiding in plain sight. I always enjoy Dexter. Even the seasons that people say were weak, I loved. Only one more season to go, though, and then I'll have to say goodbye to one of my favourite characters. Will he be found out? Will he be arrested? Will he live? Will he die?
See, now I know how YOU guys feel...
Game of Thrones: Pure awesome. Not as awesome as the books, but awesome nonetheless. Jon Snow, Arya, Dany and Tyrion for the win.
Doctor Who: It'll be so sad when Matt Smith leaves. He's made a brilliant Doctor— childlike, impulse, excitable, yet so incredibly dark and lonely. And of course Jenna Louise Coleman is wonderful and gorgeous. (But Amy will always be my first love.)
Banshee: A weird one, this. An ex-con assumes the identity of a dead man and becomes the Sheriff of a town called Banshee. It has a lovely idea at its core that it hasn't managed to live up to, but I'm still watching. Definitely adults-only stuff, and even though the action does nod its head towards realism every chance it gets, it's still way over the top. Though I'm starting to question how no one has fired a sheriff who beats up suspects in front of the whole town...
True Blood, season five: Amazingly, this show gets better and better. It's moved away from its human/vampire love story beginnings and developed its own mythology. This is wonderful stuff, fantastically inventive, very funny, but again— adults only.
Assassin's Creed 3: errrr... I kinda stopped playing. All the Assassin Creed games are very repetitive, and I just couldn't muster the enthusiasm to finish.
Resident Evil 6: Dreadful. Again, I stopped playing. It just wasn't FUN.
Skyrim: I stopped playing because I needed to write, but I do intend to go back to this. Oblivion was brilliant.
Metal Gear Rising: Awful. If I wanted a fighting game, I'd have bought a fighting game. I buy Metal Gear games because I want to sneak around and kill people when they don't expect it. (By the way, I've just seen the trailer for the next Metal Gear game, which looks like it'll fulfil every gaming need I could possibly possess.)
N0S4R2, by Joe Hill: Brilliant book. Loved every page.
The Shining Girls, by Lauren Beuke: I read this immediately after N0S4R2 and it did not suffer by comparison. Fantastic.
Annnnd I've just been emailed the edited copy of LSODM, so I shall be going through that this weekend, making last-minute changes and additions... and then it'll REALLY be done.
Honest.
The following day we were in York, again at Waterstones, for a signing that AGAIN went on for longer than we had expected. Three hours in Leeds, four hours in York. Of course, some people (who shall remain nameless) chose to go to BOTH, which may explain the length...
I came back with the usual assortment of letters and notes (which I still have to go through), presents (including a garden gnome), and Skittles. Because I like Skittles.
It was so much fun, the Watersones staff were all ultra-cool, and everyone kept me grinning from beginning to end. So thank you everyone who made it out, and thank you to everyone who braved the long queues...!
So I got home on Saturday night, and I've been home for the last week, and I haven't done ANY work at all. Well, almost. Okay, so I did some businessy type stuff, but I didn't WRITE anything. Kind of. Okay, so I'm already planning the final Skulduggery book, and possibly a few other things, but that is ALL. I am taking a BREAK. Mostly.
So now that I'm taking a break, I can give a quick rundown on stuff I've been enjoying over the past few months...
Man of Steel: This was... good. It was a good film. Wasn't brilliant. I went to it with my mum, sisters and brother. My mum and sisters all thought it was amazing. My brother and I were more subdued— and seeing as how my brother and I are the only ones whose opinion I trust, I trusted us.
Dexter, season seven: Ah, the penultimate season of the serial killer hiding in plain sight. I always enjoy Dexter. Even the seasons that people say were weak, I loved. Only one more season to go, though, and then I'll have to say goodbye to one of my favourite characters. Will he be found out? Will he be arrested? Will he live? Will he die?
See, now I know how YOU guys feel...
Game of Thrones: Pure awesome. Not as awesome as the books, but awesome nonetheless. Jon Snow, Arya, Dany and Tyrion for the win.
Doctor Who: It'll be so sad when Matt Smith leaves. He's made a brilliant Doctor— childlike, impulse, excitable, yet so incredibly dark and lonely. And of course Jenna Louise Coleman is wonderful and gorgeous. (But Amy will always be my first love.)
Banshee: A weird one, this. An ex-con assumes the identity of a dead man and becomes the Sheriff of a town called Banshee. It has a lovely idea at its core that it hasn't managed to live up to, but I'm still watching. Definitely adults-only stuff, and even though the action does nod its head towards realism every chance it gets, it's still way over the top. Though I'm starting to question how no one has fired a sheriff who beats up suspects in front of the whole town...
True Blood, season five: Amazingly, this show gets better and better. It's moved away from its human/vampire love story beginnings and developed its own mythology. This is wonderful stuff, fantastically inventive, very funny, but again— adults only.
Assassin's Creed 3: errrr... I kinda stopped playing. All the Assassin Creed games are very repetitive, and I just couldn't muster the enthusiasm to finish.
Resident Evil 6: Dreadful. Again, I stopped playing. It just wasn't FUN.
Skyrim: I stopped playing because I needed to write, but I do intend to go back to this. Oblivion was brilliant.
Metal Gear Rising: Awful. If I wanted a fighting game, I'd have bought a fighting game. I buy Metal Gear games because I want to sneak around and kill people when they don't expect it. (By the way, I've just seen the trailer for the next Metal Gear game, which looks like it'll fulfil every gaming need I could possibly possess.)
N0S4R2, by Joe Hill: Brilliant book. Loved every page.
The Shining Girls, by Lauren Beuke: I read this immediately after N0S4R2 and it did not suffer by comparison. Fantastic.
Annnnd I've just been emailed the edited copy of LSODM, so I shall be going through that this weekend, making last-minute changes and additions... and then it'll REALLY be done.
Honest.
June 13, 2013
Progress Report
161,556 words. That's how long the book is right now. I wanted to have the edit done by tonight, but unfortunately that's not going to happen. I'm up at 6 in the morning to catch a plane to Leeds, so I'm about to hit the sack.
Oh, and for those of you who were pleading with me to keep LSODM as long as possible... you've got your wish. My editor Nick and my agent Michelle both got back to me, suggesting tiny changes here and there, but nothing that would shorten the book.
So the HUGE amount of characters stay in. The MASSIVE battles stay in. The HILARIOUS jokes and LIGHTNING-FAST wit stay in. Verily, it is a good day to be a Minion.
And I've just been chatting to Laura, who calls it the "deepest and darkest one yet". So I've got her all-important seal of approval, which makes me happy.
When it's out, when you've read it, I'll talk more about the writing of it, and the various problems I had to deal with in order to make it work. Everything from Book Two onwards has been leading up to LSODM, after all. Of all the books, this is the one I was certain about from the very beginning, in 2005, but it was one I was the most unsure about when I was actually writing it. So it comes as a relief to know it's actually good.
So... tomorrow I'm in Leeds— the tickets to which are now sold out— and on Saturday I'm signing in Waterstones in York at 11AM— and no tickets needed.
I'm been really quiet lately, on the Blog and on Twitter, and I do apologise for that, but I had to devote all my attention to the book. Now that it's (practically) done, I can get back to normal. Which'll be... er... nice.
I guess...
Oh, and for those of you who were pleading with me to keep LSODM as long as possible... you've got your wish. My editor Nick and my agent Michelle both got back to me, suggesting tiny changes here and there, but nothing that would shorten the book.
So the HUGE amount of characters stay in. The MASSIVE battles stay in. The HILARIOUS jokes and LIGHTNING-FAST wit stay in. Verily, it is a good day to be a Minion.
And I've just been chatting to Laura, who calls it the "deepest and darkest one yet". So I've got her all-important seal of approval, which makes me happy.
When it's out, when you've read it, I'll talk more about the writing of it, and the various problems I had to deal with in order to make it work. Everything from Book Two onwards has been leading up to LSODM, after all. Of all the books, this is the one I was certain about from the very beginning, in 2005, but it was one I was the most unsure about when I was actually writing it. So it comes as a relief to know it's actually good.
So... tomorrow I'm in Leeds— the tickets to which are now sold out— and on Saturday I'm signing in Waterstones in York at 11AM— and no tickets needed.
I'm been really quiet lately, on the Blog and on Twitter, and I do apologise for that, but I had to devote all my attention to the book. Now that it's (practically) done, I can get back to normal. Which'll be... er... nice.
I guess...
June 4, 2013
Word Count
Second draft is done...!
Laura was meant to come round yesterday to pick up her copy, but instead she's calling round tonight. While I wait for her to arrive, I've been going over the word counts to all the books so far. I'm very surprised by the first four books— for some reason, I thought everything I've written had been over 80,000 words. Apparently not.
Skulduggery Pleasant was 67,393 words.
Playing With Fire was 69,683.
The Faceless Ones was 69,689.
Dark Days was 77,335.
And now we see the numbers start to jump...
Mortal Coil was 104,000.
Deathbringer was 118,000.
Kingdom of the Wicked was 134,765.
And the second draft of Last Stand of Dead Men is coming in at a back-breaking 156,688 words. Basically, it's twice the length of Dark Days.
I don't know how long it'll be after the edit, but hopefully I'll be able to trim it down a little.
Ooh, Laura's here. Hold on a sec...
Okay, this is Laura, holding the manuscript of LSODM.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I must chat to Laura about... stuff...
Laura was meant to come round yesterday to pick up her copy, but instead she's calling round tonight. While I wait for her to arrive, I've been going over the word counts to all the books so far. I'm very surprised by the first four books— for some reason, I thought everything I've written had been over 80,000 words. Apparently not.
Skulduggery Pleasant was 67,393 words.
Playing With Fire was 69,683.
The Faceless Ones was 69,689.
Dark Days was 77,335.
And now we see the numbers start to jump...
Mortal Coil was 104,000.
Deathbringer was 118,000.
Kingdom of the Wicked was 134,765.
And the second draft of Last Stand of Dead Men is coming in at a back-breaking 156,688 words. Basically, it's twice the length of Dark Days.
I don't know how long it'll be after the edit, but hopefully I'll be able to trim it down a little.
Ooh, Laura's here. Hold on a sec...
Okay, this is Laura, holding the manuscript of LSODM.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I must chat to Laura about... stuff...
May 26, 2013
Spirit Lake: The Winner
Wow.
Okay, that was one of the most fun competitions I've run so far. The Exquisite Corpse competition is shaping up brilliantly— the standard on display is just mind-boggling— but the Spirit Lake contest has just been fun from start to finish.
So here's what I did.
I collected all of the names of the people who entered, both here on this Blog and on Twitter, and I divided them into bundles. I made sure that each and every one had a valid reason for why they should be a video game character. Some of these reasons made sense. Some were just odd. Some were VERY odd. There are people, both Minions and Ronda Rousey fans, who are just unsettling. I'm not entirely sure how their brains work— if indeed their brains work at all.
To give you a hint of what I've been dealing with, here are a few reasons you people gave. "Because of my neurax worms." "Because I like pie." "Because I'm short.""Because I've watched Robot Wars.""Because I have a psychic elephant.""Because I have a need for speed.""Because I'm not very smart (which will make the player feel better about themselves).""Because I am Dr Who.""Because I sometimes think that I'm the only human being in the world. The rest of you are all aliens.""I would make an awesome video game character because I already AM an awesome video game character.""Because I am actually Lakota (the Spirit Lake people are my Dakota relatives)."
So I divided you all up, and those of you who entered multiple times got your names put into as many groups as possible. From each of these groups, a winner was chosen. The winners were then put into a hat.
(Not an ACTUAL hat, since I don't own one, but a METAPHORICAL hat.)
(Okay, fine, I wrote all your names on a sheet of paper and I let my cat walk on it, and the closest one to where her tail touched down was the winner.)
And sooooo... without further ado... the winner is...
Willow Kowalski!
Yayyyyyyy Willow! The only thing I know about Willow is that she's five years old (so, er, she can wait a few years before she starts reading my books) and she's a Ronda fan... It's a lovely prize, and I can't think of anyone it'd make happier.
Okay, that was one of the most fun competitions I've run so far. The Exquisite Corpse competition is shaping up brilliantly— the standard on display is just mind-boggling— but the Spirit Lake contest has just been fun from start to finish.
So here's what I did.
I collected all of the names of the people who entered, both here on this Blog and on Twitter, and I divided them into bundles. I made sure that each and every one had a valid reason for why they should be a video game character. Some of these reasons made sense. Some were just odd. Some were VERY odd. There are people, both Minions and Ronda Rousey fans, who are just unsettling. I'm not entirely sure how their brains work— if indeed their brains work at all.
To give you a hint of what I've been dealing with, here are a few reasons you people gave. "Because of my neurax worms." "Because I like pie." "Because I'm short.""Because I've watched Robot Wars.""Because I have a psychic elephant.""Because I have a need for speed.""Because I'm not very smart (which will make the player feel better about themselves).""Because I am Dr Who.""Because I sometimes think that I'm the only human being in the world. The rest of you are all aliens.""I would make an awesome video game character because I already AM an awesome video game character.""Because I am actually Lakota (the Spirit Lake people are my Dakota relatives)."
So I divided you all up, and those of you who entered multiple times got your names put into as many groups as possible. From each of these groups, a winner was chosen. The winners were then put into a hat.
(Not an ACTUAL hat, since I don't own one, but a METAPHORICAL hat.)
(Okay, fine, I wrote all your names on a sheet of paper and I let my cat walk on it, and the closest one to where her tail touched down was the winner.)
And sooooo... without further ado... the winner is...
Willow Kowalski!
Yayyyyyyy Willow! The only thing I know about Willow is that she's five years old (so, er, she can wait a few years before she starts reading my books) and she's a Ronda fan... It's a lovely prize, and I can't think of anyone it'd make happier.
May 24, 2013
May 21, 2013
Quick Post...
A few days left of this rewrite, and the book will be done. DONE!
In the meantime, I shall be collecting all the names of those who entered the Spirit Lake competition, and should have a winner in a day or two. In other news?
In other news, this Friday, right here on this Blog, I shall be unveiling the COVER of Last Stand of Dead Men...
Prepare yourselves.
In the meantime, I shall be collecting all the names of those who entered the Spirit Lake competition, and should have a winner in a day or two. In other news?
In other news, this Friday, right here on this Blog, I shall be unveiling the COVER of Last Stand of Dead Men...
Prepare yourselves.
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